Oldest Trout Family Patent Discovered

Our Trout family tree is brimming with inventors and engineers.  This ingenuity can be traced back to the Trout family’s difficult pioneer life near the village of Erin, Ontario.  

Our immigrant ancestor Henry Trout (1770-1852) was one of the first settlers in Erin.  In true pioneer form they had to provide everything for themselves.  Henry and his oldest sons built the town’s first sawmill, the first trading post, and the first potash factory.  They cleared land so they could grow their own food and erected a home. They built spinning wheels and looms and made their own clothes.  Henry even learned to make shoes for the family.  These skill sets, first honed in the Canadian wilderness, would leave a legacy lasting generations.

The earliest patent attributed to a Trout family member that I have located was authored by Henry Trout’s 4th child, Henry Trout (1805-1853) of Hamilton, Ontario.  Like his brothers Henry Jr. was a skilled millwright.  His brother William Trout of Meaford “regarded [his] natural mechanical abilities as superior to his own.”   

Henry’s watermill experience proved useful in similar construction work.  He dredged rivers and built timber slides, notably along the Trent-Severn Waterway.  Later he worked for the Grand Trunk Railway as a superintendent of bridge construction.  It was likely during this time he conceived his idea for a type of rack railway, and received the first known patent in our Trout family.  Henry’s first and only patent was awarded in 1850, just three years before his untimely death from a falling tree branch.  Henry’s sons, Henry G. Trout (1829-1911) and William B. Trout (1850-1926) would both inherit their father’s ingenuity and lead successful careers in the shipbuilding industry.  I will tell their story in a future blog post.

Sources:

Trout, William H. Trout Family History. Meyer-Rotier Print. Co., 1916.

Angus, J. A Respectable Ditch: a History of the Trent-Severn Waterway 1833-1920. McGill-Queen's University Press, 1998.

Patents of Canada: 1849-1855.  Lovell & Gibson, 1865.